Virtue

Prologue

The quill scratched on the parchment. A log spat in the grate. The guttering tallow candle flared as a needle of night wind pierced the ill-fitting shutters.

The man at the table paused in his writing. He dipped his nib in the inkstand and looked around the dim, shabby apartment. The paneled walls were cracked and inlaid with years of grime, the floor sticky beneath his booted feet. He huddled into his cloak and glanced toward the fire. It was low in the grate, and he bent to pick up a log from the basket. Then he let it rail back again. It was an extravagance he didn't need. Not now… not in a very few minutes.

He turned back to his writing, and the scratching of the quill was the only sound. Then he reached for the sander and dusted the epistle. Without reading what he had written, he folded the paper with scrupulous care and neatness, dropped a thick blob of candlewax on the folds, and pressed his signet ring into the seal. He sat for a minute, gazing fixedly at the initials imprinted in the wax: G D. Then he wrote again on the front of the sealed paper.

He rose from the table and propped the paper on the mantelpiece against a tarnished candlestick. There was an inch of brandy in the bottle on the table. He poured it into a glass and tossed it back, savoring the rough burn on his tongue, the warmth as it slid down his throat. It was a rough and ready brew for a man who had once known only the finest cognac, and yet it comforted.

He went to the door and opened it softly. The passage outside was dark and quiet. Soft-footed, he crept along the corridor and paused outside the two facing doors at the end. They were securely shut. Gently he turned the knob of the right-hand door. The door swung open and he stood in the opening, looking across the darkness to the shape of the bed and the mound beneath the covers. His lips moved soundlessly as if in benediction, then he closed the door with the same gentleness and repeated the exercise in the other doorway.

He returned to the candlelit apartment, closed the door, and went back to the table. He opened a drawer and drew out the silver-mounted pistol. He spun the chamber. There was one bullet. But he needed no more.

The single shot shattered the silence of the night. The letter on the mantelpiece bore the legend: Sebastian and Judith: My dearest children. When you read this, you will at last understand.